AT&T to Throttle Heaviest Data Hogs

Get Over It

First of all, I am not surprised at all. When AT&T and then Verizon went tiered (and T-Mobile throttled back at a very low level) it was pretty obvious that this was coming to those who were grandfathered in with unlimited data.

Secondly, in spite of their ads, don't be surprised when Sprint takes one or the other approach as well.

Third, everyone should have known this was coming with more reliance on "the cloud" that EVERYONE (including Apple) is pushing. More and more apps will be in "the cloud" and that means more and more data use. Everyone acts surprised...but it's just a return to the past.

Those of us who have been around for a while remember when we paid $40 a month just to have voice service available, and between .20 and .40 a minute to use it. Really old-timers will remember old fashioned mobile phone service pre-1984 B.C. (before cellular) rates of up to $2.00 a minute!

We also remember CompuServe & AOL billing on a per-minute basis. We made sure our conversations, emails and chats were necessary or at least important, instead of forwarding everything in site to a mailing list of who knows how many.

Don't think it's over - some non-wireless (cable & phone cos) are implementing similar rules, albeit with higher caps. Still more are already charging more for higher speeds. I get 12 - 15 MBPS on my cable service, but if I don't want to pay the higher price I can get DSL speeds for less.

The only reason all landline calls are not metered is because the phone cos don't want to lose more customers to VOIP, so the companies are aware that they can recoup the losses on the backside - data charges.

Business phone customers have been paying by the minute for local service for years in many cases. Everything is reverting back to pay by the minute or megabyte.

The only chance you have is to change the rules the companies operate under, either through Congress or the FCC. Run for office or get enough people to lobby to change things...